This sentiment comes to my mind quite frequently. Part of me can't believe that there hasn't been some sort of nuclear event already. Being only 25, I feel like such an event is inevitable in my life and have a really hard time convincing myself otherwise.
Yeah, we should really up the level of fear and tension over the terrorists.
I'm not disagreeing that the paranoia around American<->Russian relations isn't massively overblown, but I think you underestimate the aspirations of the Russian ruling class, and the degree to which the working class would bend to those aspirations if called upon (forced to).
That said, such attack would obviously be a horrible thing, and reasonable preventive efforts are justified. The key word being reasonable.
What train of thought brings you to considering the destruction of a major city by a nuclear bomb a 'minor' event?
In no way I want to imply that such an event would not be absolutely horrible and an act of evil. But considering the actual damage that nukes do is what finally cured me of being scared shitless of nuke-wielding terrorists. And yes, I used to be really scared of that.